We're getting wood for our floors and ceilings from "Old Wood" in Las Vegas, New Mexico. This family-owned business supplies special orders to the rich and famous and to regular budget-bound people like DH and me. Website is douglasfirfloors.com Do read the "soap box" section of the website. This company sells lots more than Douglas fir. We went to the company headquarters, had a tour courtesy David Old (the owner), sat in a sample room full of varieties of flooring, and "designed" our custom order at a very good price. Then David took me way out back of the main building and showed me the giant logs our floor would be made from. They were from an old railroad cut in Castle Rock, Colorado. More timber was recently harvested from this previously cut area and brought down to New Mexico. I would strongly recommend this vendor, I have no connection whatsoever with the company. David Old is an environmentalist, really into forest conservation and doing things the right way. Why buy plastic from China when you can get "made in the USA" real wood? Here is a link that might be useful: Old Wood - Las Vegas, New Mexico

Count me in for the engineered wood plank floors too. I have Robbins Passeggiata 3 1/4" ash flooring, and I absolutely love it. I live in NH - arid winters and malarial summers, no AC and forced-hot-water heat so the moisture levels swing drastically). Others I knew with solid hardwood floors got gaps every winter and that just drives me NUTS because the cracks between the boards can collect dirt and expose unfinished wood where moisture can infiltrate and spoil the finish. People are very stubborn here about "solid wood has done us fine for 300 years, it'll be fine for another 300!" so I had to fight to get engineered instead of site-finished solid that is the standard here. Site finishing was not an option because we couldn't move out for installation! Besides, I do believe that the factory finishes are more durable than site-applied finishes, since they have the benefit of controlled conditions, kiln curing, etc. (We bought an extra bundle because we knew we'd have to patch the spot by the dog's bed since his nails grow at turbo speed and the floor's pretty gouged.) I adored the look of the extra wide planks, especially the distressed and handscraped types in 7"-plus widths, but they were just SO expensive! I paid $9/sf installed for my Robbins flooring while many of the wide-plank floors I looked at ran much more than that just for the materials for a good quality product. *choke* Bruce has some relatively-inexpensive 5-7" plank floors at around $6-7/sf uninstalled but I'm just not knocked out by their finish quality, the planks were either square-edge (sock-catchers if your floors are not perfectly flat) or had a deeper bevel than I liked, and their veneer layer is thinner than Robbins. Robbins warrants for three full refinishings! As of early 2005 they had the thickest veneer layer in the industry, a full third of the board's thickness. I like their extremely small microbevel as well because it doesn't catch dirt, it sweeps out fine and you don't catch your socks (or worse chip the floorboards where there's raised bits due to subfloor imperfection). I'm not one for strip floors, I find them too busy. Besides, I am an old-house nut, and old New England houses had wide-plank floors, not these stingy little strips! I visited one early-1800s house on the town's historical society house tour where the narrowest board on the floor was 12", many were 16" and even 20", all rock-hard pine. Had I had gobs of greenbacks and a house that could carry it, I'd have gone for wide planks in reclaimed wood. *swoon*

rpiszczor77, I would be glad to provide samples and a quote for you on this project. We manufacture our wood flooring in San Antonio, TX and have a lot of high quality options in the $8 - $12 range. Take a look at our website - www.woodco.com. We offer both solid and engineered. Our engineered flooring is available with either a 4mm or 6mm wear layer. The 6mm wear layer will give you as much wear life as a solid wood floor. You can read more here -- https://www.woodco.com/news/solid-vs-engineered-flooring/ If you have any questions, we would love to help answer them. Give us a call at 210.298.9663 or email me direct at debbie@woodco.com I hope to hear from you soon!

Warping of wide plank is mainly an issue with SOLID WOOD. A decent quality engineered floor will not move significantly with normal humidity changes. The main issue with them would be to ensure that there is not issue with moisture from underneath and to maintain at least 35% humidity in the air, an issue mainly seen in deserts or areas where freezing temperatures cause humidity to go to zero.